Ken Fisher & Jim Simons: Two Billionaires Bulking Up On Drugs

Billionaires Ken Fisher and Jim Simons are two of the top names in the money management business. Fisher runs Fisher Asset Management and is also a long-time columnist for Forbes. Fisher founded Fisher Asset Management in 1979 and has been writing for Forbes for over 25 years. Here’s Ken Fisher’s full equity portfolio.

Simons founded Renaissance Technologies (RenTech) in 1982 and the firm continues to manage various hedge funds across the world. Simons’ Medallion Fund is one of the best in the industry, making Simons a very rich man while using high frequency trading to exploit inefficiencies in the stock market. Simons stepped down as CEO of RenTech in 2010 and the fund’s investors are now mainly current and past employees (check out Jim Simons’ latest picks).

In reviewing the duo’s latest 13F filings with the SEC – which reveal most of the publicly traded securities that each manager owns – we found that Fisher and Simons both have big bets in the pharma industry. Fisher and Simons each have two pharma stocks in their top five holdings, and have almost $3 billion invested cumulatively across five big-name pharma companies.

Our first pharma company is Fisher’s number one stock holding in his 13F, Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE). Fisher increased his stake in Pfizer by 45% last quarter after the pharma stock traded relatively flat in 2Q. Pfizer completed the sale of its nutrition business to Nestle for $11 billion, which puts it on its path for realignment. Spurring Pfizer on will be its plan to IPO some 20% of its animal health business, with proceeds used to drive further dividend increases and its $10 billion share repurchase program that was recently announced.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) is another one of Fisher’s big time bets, being the second largest stock holding in his 3Q 13F. Revenues are expected to be up 8% in 2013 thanks in part to a full year of Synthes’ integrated sales. The Synthes acquisition will help Johnson & Johnson expand its product offering to more orthopedic products, and is expected to add $4 billion in sales in 2013. Fellow billionaire investor George Soros also has Johnson & Johnson as one of his latest bets, increasing his stake by over 1500% during the third quarter (check out George Soros’ new picks).

GlaxoSmithKline PLC (NYSE:GSK) is another one of Fisher’s pharma bets and is the 23rd largest holding in his 13F portfolio. Fisher increased his stake by 130% last quarter. Revenues for Glaxo are expected to be flat for 2012 as the pharma company sees erosion in older drug lines. Volume gains in new pharmaceuticals, such as Lovaza, should help counter this erosion in the interim, and is expected to drive sales growth in the mid-single digits for 2013. Glaxo will likely see the most pressure of our five pharma stocks given its above-average exposure to Europe.